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  • From: "Rick Hopkins" <rdhopkins AT americanpasturage.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] question for Rick Hopkins on labels
  • Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 23:19:22 -0600

Caryl,

The processor is the one who submits the label for USDA approval unless you
use a submission company. I chose to save some money and go the long way.
It can take up to 3 months with no exclusions if you do not expedite the
request.

I found that the USDA personnel will not provide a last name or an
extension. A trick I did learn was to ask if I could FAX them some info,
that way I had a central contact point to work our approval. This became
important as one of our labels was rejected, but never returned due to a
miss-spelled word. The word was an engineered word in the brand name and I
finally won the battle on those grounds.

Changes being discussed surround exclusions. The USDA may begin to require
further explanation on the label as to what an exclusion means. A statement
such as "No antibiotics" would require clarification as to the meaning as
the current rules exclude residual levels of antibiotics already.

I have already decided to drop all exclusions if the rules become
inconvenient. The customers don't read the labels, they read your eyes. It
only took me a few hours to realize that the dark glasses had to go even
though I face the morning sun at my farmers market location. I purposely
set up that way so the customers don't have to face the sun as our market is
oriented north and south.

If your submission company gets your label through in a few weeks, I would
say they have earned their $165. A friend that does some custom processing
for branded products just figures a plane ticket each time he needs a label.
He flies to DC and walks the label through.

Rick H.

-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Caryl
Elzinga
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 10:43 PM
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Market-farming] question for Rick Hopkins on labels


We've been working on getting a label approved by the USDA. We've been
working through a submission company that originally quoted us $20.75 for
the submission, but just notified us they were charging us $165 for their
service because our submission was so "complex" (grass-fed, no hormones, no
antibiotics). Are you going directly to the USDA? Who is the contact? How
long does it take? What are the changes coming done the line?

Caryl Elzinga


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